Law Commons^™

Natural Is Not In It: Disaster, Race, And The Built Environment, Thomas W. Joo

Thomas W Joo

Hurricane Katrina was not a “natural” disaster; rather it illustrates the role that human choices play in many arenas we tend to think of as governed by chance natural occurrence. This essay explores this theme on three different levels.

First, insights from the legal analysis of the built environment illuminate the disaster as an example of the influence of human choices on the shape of the environment, including urban planning and flood control policy

Second, Katrina underscores the role of race-based choices in the fate of Americans. Like environmental decisions, deliberate racial segregation and neglect were as critical as chance …

Participation And Disintermediation In A Risk Society, Robert J. Rhee

Faculty Scholarship

The chapter argues that financing extreme catastrophic loss will become more problematic as catastrophes become more frequent and severe. An effective strategy must increase the level of participation in the spreading of risk and loss. Currently, risk spreading is done largely through insurers and government as they are the default aggregators of private and public capital. An enlargement of participation may mean the disintermediation of the traditional insurance and public compensation functions, thus allowing more direct and efficient participation between those are exposed to risk and those who are willing to bear it. This chapter also argues that tax policy …